Too Busy Too Blog/ Balzam, Burgers and Butcher Buddies

So due to the festive season my social calendar has been pretty full on. My weekends are spent too drunk/hunogver to blog and my weeks are spent too busy actually doing work to blog. Therefore I apologise for the lack of bloggage action! However this means that I now have a lot to say or ‘blog’. I won’t write a 5 page essay don’t worry, I’ll break it down for you. The first one is taking you back two weeks ago when me and 5 of my boys (as mentioned before we act more like lads then ladies) travelled to Latvia. Literally a 2 day, 2 night flying visit, not a lot can happen in that short space of time right? Wrong.

Why Latvia you ask, well good question and I wish I knew the answer. All I know is that as I was skimming through our whatsapp group a month ago I came across the following:

‘Latvia is joining the EU in Jan’

‘Flights are 20 quid each way’

‘Hostel is 20 quid each for 2 nights’

‘End of Nov’

Now normally I would pay more attention, do some research and make an informed to decision. However for some reason on this particular day I was in a live for now mood and therefore replied.

‘I’m in, what do I transfer to who’

So now its booked, and I start telling people, and the reactions I get are:

‘Oh that’s near Russia, it’s gonna be cold, good luck’

‘Oh I work with people from there, good luck’

‘Isn’t that were the film hostel is filmed?’

‘Oh and your staying in a hostel, good luck’

Sorry what?! I can just about cope with British winter let alone a Russian winter. I am a child of the summer, a water baby, born to live in a hot climate (no I am not referring to ‘sunny London’). Why on earth would I agree to travel to somewhere colder.

In addition to that, anyone who knows me, will agree that I am, maybe, just a little bit of a princess. A princess who agreed to stay in a hostel. Sorry was I in a ‘live for now’ mood when I signed up or a ‘give yourself a mental breakdown’ mood.

I am not about this YOLO life. I need all the luck I can get

So without going into a fully day by day description, I’ll give you the lowdown on Latvia.

Balsam

Latvia’s traditional spirit. I failed to try the actual stuff (I’m not that hardcore) but with 45% alcohol and the image of my friends faces when they tried it, I was glad to pass. I went instead for the tame 30% blackcurrent flavour, which was let me tell you, just as lethal. Now I am pretty sure that the -5 weather did not hit us that hard due to the high volume of this cough like syrup we had downed. I also owe the fuzziness in my head the next day to what I can only describe as a lethal weapon of alcohol destruction.

Burgers

Only would me and my friends find ourselves in a hostel that’s directly above macdonalds, with an entrance that is directly through the middle of macdonalds, which is open 24 hours. Apart from Sunday, when it closes earlier. Due to a unfortunate series of events – our captain (Tiana) did not receive a burger on her first drunken night in Latvia. This is due to the smallest member of our group consuming her burger along with the captains. Bad move. All has still not been forgiven. So come Sunday we have all promised the captain SHE WILL GET A BURGER. 6am we rock up at Macd’s (yes I said 6am) and its closed. Every single one of us made the facial expression of a kid whose Candy had been stolen. Not just for ourselves but for the captain who we promised would get her burger!

‘THE EXPRESS WINDOW BETTER BE OPEN OR I’LL HAVE 5 SOLID TEARS TATTOED DOWN MY FACE’

Lucky for us, the express window was open and she got not only one but two burgers and we all lived to see another day.

Butchers.

Let me explain the tear situation. Whilst our on our first night, the captain decides to pick up a girl – who she believes in a Lesbian. Bearing in mind the captain loves the D, we all make friends with her because we’re just nice like that. So this lesbian (or so we think) called Rita, joins us on our bar crawl through Riga’s old town. In between the dancing, drinking, smoking and singing ‘My nigga, my nigga, my nigga’ (we are not racist I swear) we all get the chance to talk to Rita, you know really get to know her.

Me first, oh Rita is from Riga, but she moved away with her boyfriend 7 years ago. He isn’t around anymore so she is back. Right so Rita is straight. Oh Rita is out on her own tonight, she hasn’t been out in ages and she felt brave enough to have a night out alone. Right so Rita is a new addition to our group of friends. Oh Rita wants to travel, maybe to London. Right so Rita takes down my email address whilst I’m still sober enough to write it on a napkin. Oh Rita has 4 tattoos, 3 on her face and one on her fanny. Right Rita has a tattoo in the same place as me, I am not drunk enough to show her yet so we’ll save that for later.

I don’t know exactly how everyone elses conversations go, but what I did find out from the others is that Rita’s teardrop face tattoos represent her ex boyfriends. The two empty ones are those she is no longer with and the filled in one is the one she murdered. Oh so Rita has just been released from jail. Right so a murderer is on a night out with us, has my email address and thinks we are friends. Well isn’t this splendid.

From that point onwards, anything Rita wanted she got. We didn’t want to die! The bar looks shit, if Rita wants to go in, we go in. It’s too cold to walk, if Rita wants to walk, we walk.

In addition to the above we also did some cultural stuff like the Christmas markets where my friends purse got pick pocketed. Went to the Raddisons Sky Bar where we got thrown out with our drinks in paper cups as it was closing and sang Karaoke for 6 hours.

All in all it was an epic success at failing a holiday. But it gave me great laughs, another country to tick off the world map, a few funny stories to tell and a murderer my email address.